


An Uncommon Meeting

by TheZeroMoment



Category: In the Flesh (TV), Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Death, Depression, Friendship, Light Angst, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 13:14:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4350161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheZeroMoment/pseuds/TheZeroMoment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kieren's suicide attempt had failed, and after the funeral of Rick, he felt quite possibly like he wanted to try it again. Riley had been sitting on the steps of Woolworths for about four hours now, contemplating life and death herself when Kieren comes stumbling along. They talk out love, life, and death over a packet of cigarettes. Bit morbid actually.</p>
<p>Crossover meeting between Riley Blue (Sense8) and Kieren Walker (In The Flesh)<br/>Prompt on tumblr by the fantastical how-delightfully-utter</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Uncommon Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by how-delightfully-utter's amazing post on tumblr about Riley and Kier meeting. I had to write it. I'm sorry.  
> Idk if I want to make this into a longer thing?? I kinda do?? Maybe somedayyy.
> 
> <3

The snow crunched under his boots – frigid and cold. He had been sleeping in train stations over the past couple of days, not wanting to deal with school or his family or anything. He hadn’t eaten in a few days, and had been surviving off bummed cigarettes and cheap cider that he was paying with using pennies found at the bottom of his pockets. He didn’t care much about having something to keep his insides warm. He stopped feeling the cold a while ago.

 

Rick’s death had been difficult. In a way, Kieren had already grown accustomed to the pitiful loneliness immersed deep in his chest; it was the funeral that had intensified the pain once again.

 

Could he never catch a fucking break?

 

He had to go home for it, leave his flat and his paintings and his newly proclaimed BFF fashion designer in the making, Amy, and his weird sad life he’d made for himself trying to distract from Rick’s death the previous spring and his own suicide attempt that summer.

 

He wasn’t allowed into the ceremony.

 

It had seemed, years of friendship, despite what everyone had thought, would’ve been enough to let him into the fucking funeral. He still felt partially responsible for the childish stolen kisses exchanged in the weeks leading up to his original departure.

 

_“Ren, we shouldn’t...”_

_“When are you gonna admit you like me like this, Rick?”_

_“You know why I can’t! An’ as long as you know, isn’ tha’ enough?”_

 

It wasn’t, it had seemed. Kieren had rolled his eyes and shoved him away in his own stupid selfishness. He knew things couldn’t have ever worked, but somehow they had tricked themselves into years of midnight hand holding and ‘maybe someday’s.

 

It didn’t matter much, seeing Rick’s grave would’ve probably tipped him over the edge again. Anyways, Rick hated winter, and he hated carnations – which had so happened to be scattered around the graveyard from what he saw before he was shoved away from the gates by Gary, with Bill glaring pointedly in the background. If Kieren didn’t know better, he’d say he was grinning.

 

Rick was always the sacrifice.

 

_“Di’n’t ya know? Being a poof is a sin. Your lot can’t be on holy ground.”_

 

It was probably the lack of closure that was doing him in, really.

 

The air was harsh in his lungs, it seemed frivolous to hope that maybe if he slept outside tonight, the ice would embed itself into him.

 

Maybe he would finally die right. But even then it would be wrong. Rick hated the cold, Rick hated winter, but it never stopped him laughing as Kieren had twirled in the snowflakes, dragging him out into the woods to watch them stick delicately to the bare tree branches.

Tears spilled down his face as he stumbled over a hidden grassy mound. He probably looked like a hooker in his ripped kneed jeans and threadbare t-shirt, especially in this side of Town, but he couldn’t bring himself to care much.

 

He partially collapsed against the cold concrete wall and didn’t even wipe his tears away from where they froze over on his face. He was so stupid. He could do this.

 

It’s why he came so far away from Roarton, to be completely honest, and too far from campus and his flat for Amy to find him.

 

He was tired of being seen, of being found, of being pointed and stared at for one reason or another. Especially for the wide scar on his right wrist whenever he raised that hand in slightly-too-short long sleeves to pick something up.

 

He wanted to disappear. He wanted to get somewhere high and fall, if possible, or get a hold of something sharp to split his wrists open again, maybe his feet too, and turn the dirty grey snow red.

 

“Hey, kiddo, y’alright?” A weird accent interrupted his spiralling train of thought.

 

“No.” His own voice wasn’t really real. He sounded like a machine, designed to spurt out tragic artwork and self-depreciating smiles and that’s about it. Die another common, beautifully depressing artists death.

 

“I get that feel.” She was small, huddled in the doorway alcove of what looked like more beat-up Woolworths, wrapped in a shawl and a sleeping bag. “Fancy a cig and a chat?”

 

Kieren’s heavy breathing and slightly raised eyebrows made her shake her head in what seemed like amusement.

 

“Humour me.”

 

He still didn’t say anything, and instead elected to slump down next to the girl. She sounded Scandinavian, the more he thought about it, Norwegian, perhaps? She was paler than himself, with a drawn face and stringy white hair cut harshly short under her ears. Her eyes were pale and watered down, but she smiled kindly and in a way that made Kieren feel at ease. She smiled like she was exhausted, like she was also trying to hide from the world.

 

He was feeling rather poetic about this seemingly kindred spirit. Or maybe that was just the hypothermia.

It was only when she nudged him with her gloved fingers on the leg, that he saw the packet of crumpled cigarettes, only a few left in the box. He took one gratefully and lit it with the lighter he kept in his jeans pocket, after lighting the girl’s own of course.

 

He took a deep drag and let the smoke settle in his lungs, warming him through before he let the curling tendrils leak out of his mouth and up into the dark cloudy sky, dancing in the nonexistent breeze. Rick would’ve shouted at him for smoking, he knew it.

 

“Thanks.”

 

“No problem.” They sat in silence for a while, until the rest of the girls packet had been smoked through and Kieren had dug his own out from his back pocket for them to share.

 

She laughed at the branding on the packet, not in a spiteful way, but enough to let the smoke blow into Kieren’s face in an old familiar way.

_“Fuckin’ shirtlifter, skulkin’ round ‘ere. The fuck d’ya think yer ‘ere for, eh?” Bill flicked the butt of his cigarette at Kieren and to blow the smoke in his face, making him cough slightly and his eyes water. It was their night. He needed to know why Rick hadn’t met him._

_Rick himself was sat, eyes cast downwards and seemingly unaware to the red flush on Kieren’s cheek where the hot ash of the bud had landed on impact. He refused to flinch, and refused to brush it away as he walked out of the Legion._

 

“You ever love someone so much, it feels like flyin’, but like yer dying at the same time?” His accent was stronger, and with slight husk from chain smoking cheap cigarettes.

 

“Almost died multiple times over for him, once almost by my own doing, you?” She wasn’t looking at him, it was like she was staring at the man, whoever she was talking about, like he was stood just across the road from where they crouched.

 

“He died.”

 

“You and me, we’re more alike than any other stranger I’ve met smoking.” She smiled, and reached over to light Kieren’s next cigarette. “Wanna talk about it?”

 

Kieren contemplated spilling his innermost thoughts to a complete stranger for only a moment while he took another long drag of smoke; letting it float out of his mouth before he began to talk.

 

“He was my best friend, y’know? The sort you could go to about anything.” He paused and the girl nodded at him slightly in encouragement. “Where I’m from, people hate queers. There’s quite a bit of religion about and his father was very...  masculine. He tended to enforce his beliefs onto Rick, which made him terrified of course of ever disappointing him. It didn’t help of course, that he was quite aware of how smitten I was, and ended up banning me from their house when I was fourteen.” He shrugged. The shock factor of it had worn of many years ago, but it still felt relevant to mention.

 

“Rick was... brilliant. I was hated pretty much by everyone in town minus my family, but he didn’t. He was always there, telling me stupid jokes and ditching his footie mates because he’d rather spend time with me and listen to stupid music and let me draw him.” He paused, smoking his cigarette thoughtfully.

 

“I definitely love him. And I know he loved me back. We kissed a couple times one night, and he couldn’t understand why I was so sad we had to be kept a secret, and I guess it was my fault for not fully getting the danger that we were both constantly in. Next thing I know, he was in an army basic training camp. Six months later he was dead in some dessert.”

 

The girl finally sighed. “That is tragic,” she stubbed her cigarette out on the pavement before rubbing her hands on her sleeping bag like she was cleaning them off.

 

“What was he like? Y’know, the one you almost died for.” He asked timidly.

 

“Well, I grew up in Iceland. We were like highschool sweethearts or some shit.” She laughed, shaking her hair free from where it had blown awkwardly around her face. “I loved him, more than anything else in the whole world.”

 

“What happened?”

 

“There was a car crash.” Her hands were shaking, clenched tightly in her sleeping bag, but her face remained stoic, like she was used to telling this story, as she stared out onto the quietening streets; cars were still beeping and racing past, but not half as often, he was glad to say.

 

_The radio crackled under the static of the storm. Magnús was trying to be comforting, hushing her._

_“It’s going to be alright, just hold on, we’ll be there soon my love.” She could only respond with muffled screams of agony. It felt like what she would imagine to be a demon tearing open her insides, turning her guts to thorns and using them to rip her apart from the inside. Maybe this child was a demon, she was hexed after all, it would make perfect sense._

_She didn’t even register Magnús losing control on the ice, or the turn of the car, or anything through the blinding pain. It was only when she realised she was upside down, and Magnús himself was unresponsive and bleeding from the head, did she realise what had happened._

_The stress quite literally tore the baby from her._

 

“He died, our daughter died, I survived.”

 

“I’m sorry.” The words were out of his mouth before he even realised how stupid it was to say them. He, personally, had hated people apologising for Rick’s death, as if they could’ve changed it.

 

“Not your fault.” She smiled again; her friendliness confused him slightly, but it was nice, maybe she felt the similar sort of connection. Leaning into him slightly, Kieren let the sleepy and damp musty smell of her hair and clothing effulge his nostrils. It was a comforting gesture although slightly forced.

 

There was silence for a while, not that he minded. The night time was beautiful in London, in that sort of hipster, city-like way with the bass of club music vibrating the air from two streets away, the occasional siren and cars driving past at illegal speeds; the light pollution protecting the stars from humankind and dying the sky purple and orange, clearing into gold around where the bouncy streetlights stood.

 

“Did you ever try to... y’know, kill yourself??” He didn’t know why he asked that. Maybe it was reassurance that maybe he could actually get past it, the urge to slice his arm open again that was. His hand automatically went to touch the inside of his left wrist, where the thick white scar stood raised on his sparsely freckled skin.

 

She shifted away from him to meet his eye, squinting slightly, as if she was trying to figure out if he could be trusted.

 

“Twice.”

 

_The wind whipped ice through her hair, causing the tears to freeze to her face and teeth chatter in rhythm like icicles. It was so cold._

_The snow was warmer than the wind, it was stable, it didn’t want to rip her apart like Lúna or the snowflakes that felt like they were made of steel knives. She let herself curl up in the snow, pulling her knees up and watching the powdery flakes dance. She didn’t care. Why was it so hard to just die like they had?_

 

“First time was in the mountains. I never tried to leave the crash site or look for help. I lay in the snow expecting to freeze to death. Second time, I overdosed deliberately at a party, few of the people there realised it was serious shit and took me to some paramedics.” She looked at him. “Presuming you did something too, judging by the question.” She raised an inquisitive eyebrow. Kieren understood; a story for a story.

 

“Last June.” He held his wrist up. “In the cave we used to hang out in. My little sister found me.”

 

“Harsh.”

 

“Yep.”

 

“It gets easier.”

 

“Does it?” Kieren looked at his hands, he wasn’t hopeful, but maybe this girl, this woman would know better.

 

He hoped she was right.

 

“No, but we learn to cope. There’s distractions; drugs, booze, music,”she sighed wistfully, like she was talking about a particularly pleasant dream, before hooking her tiny, freezing fingers between his in an attempt at casual contact. “You should come to one of my gigs someday, you should be able to find me somewhere.”

 

“I’ll plan on it.” He smiled, for real this time. She was laughing breathily, fog appearing from her nose and mouth. “Who should I ask for?”

 

“Riley Blue.” She said in a mock-posh voice, “and you, kind sir?” She joked in the same tone, her nose stuck up in the air in a way that reminded him of Gary’s girlfriend Vicky back in Roarton.

 

“Kieren Walker.” He said, laughing at her wink, before standing up and brushing off his trousers. “I best be off, I have quite a way to get home, and I fear my roommate will kill me with worry.” He didn’t want to leave, but the dawn was peaking over the horizon of skyscrapers, and, well, he needed to paint. He had a scholarship to maintain. It’s what Rick would’ve wanted from him.

 

“Okay, I’ll see you soon though, right Kieren Walker?”

 

“Of course, Riley Blue, and thank you.” He said. Before he even had time to register, she had stood up, grotty sleeping bag falling to her feet, and pulled him tight to her small frame in a hug.

  
“Take care, kiddo, I rather like you.” She said once they parted.

 

He waved childishly as he walked away, with not quite a spring in his step, but an appreciative, tender grace to him as he watched the sky turn pink on his way home. Maybe Riley Blue was right; maybe he could cope.

 

 


End file.
